Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

  • You use Microsoft SQL Server 2012, 2014, or 2016.

  • You use the ALTER DATABASE … MODIFY FILE … statement to configure the tempdb database to use a new log file.

  • You specify the new log file size to be smaller than 248 KB.

  • You stop and then restart the instance of SQL Server to apply the change.

In this scenario, the instance of SQL Server does not start. Additionally, error messages that resemble the following are logged to the SQL Server error log:

Error: 9004, Severity: 21, State: 1.An error occurred while processing the log for database 'tempdb'.  If possible, restore from backup. If a backup is not available, it might be necessary to rebuild the log.Error: 945, Severity: 14, State: 2.Database 'tempdb' cannot be opened due to inaccessible files or insufficient memory or disk space.  See the SQL Server errorlog for details.

Resolution

This problem was fixed in the following cumulative updates for SQL Server:

Cumulative Update 7 for SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 1 Cumulative Update 2 for SQL Server 2016 Cumulative Update 5 for SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 3 (SP3) Note After you install this update and then start the instance of SQL Server, SQL Server expands the log file to the minimum required size.

Each new cumulative update for SQL Server contains all the hotfixes and all the security fixes that were included with the previous cumulative update. Check out the latest cumulative updates for SQL Server:

Latest cumulative update for SQL Server 2014 Latest cumulative update for SQL Server 2016 Latest cumulative update for SQL Server 2012 SP3

Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

References

Learn about the terminology Microsoft uses to describe software updates.

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